After 1 billion sales, this is what the iPhone is still missing

On Wednesday 27 July, in a gleaming glass-walled conference room in Cupertino, California, a collection of Apple employees greeted their overlord (CEO) Tim Cook to the stage.

"iPhone has become one of the most important, world-changing and successful products in history. It's become more than a constant companion," he said, before missing the greatest Dr Evil impersonation opportunity of a lifetime. "Last week we passed another major milestone when we sold the billionth iPhone. We never set out to make the most, but we’ve always set out to make the best products that make a difference.".

One billion iPhones. A billion. It's a staggering testament to Apple's gadget - a piece of tech that's changed many people's daily lives, without a hint of overstated hyperbole.

And yet, while its various iterations have been brilliant, it still isn't quite perfect. Here's what we still want from Apple's record-breaking handset.

A good battery

Many have come to depend on the iPhone for their daily life. That's what Apple pretty much set out to do, to make, "the best products that make a difference", as Cook said.

So please, please, make us an iPhone with a battery that LASTS A DAY. Hold off on the camera updates. Ditch the fancy audio improvement. You've given us more functions than we could possibly hope for, so is it too much to ask for a handset with the juice to match?

Buy whatever battery company needs to be bought - we'd bet all our iPhones, past and present, that if Apple put a new handset on stage and said, "the battery lasts three days", the world would lose its collective shit. Make it happen.

Give us a normal cable

This one's just rude.

Ever since 2013, the EU has been working to cut down on electronic wastage, costs and clutter by getting gadget manufacturers to agree on one standard cable connection. It even made it law in 2014, that a single charger type should come into circulation by 2017.

The way that Apple has treated iPhone owners over their cable tweaks, changes and shifts just takes the piss. If Apple makes one more change to its connector designs, we hope it'll be to bring it in line to a model the rest of the world has agreed on - and not a cable that'll cost us £30 to replace when it inevitably breaks after six months of use.

Other than that, you're good

That's it. That's all we're going to moan about. Sure, the iPhone could get a load of extra features: a 4K screen, a fancy 3D dual camera, waterproof build, a host of things that other smartphones have already got. But it doesn't need these to be "the best product".

We just feel that these two things - a woeful battery and a cable policy that's downright rude - to change. Then Apple will have managed it: the best product of its kind, that changes our daily lives. Not just eight hours of it.